There has been concern in recent years about the effect of excessive dietary sodium ion intake. Excessive sodium ion intake is believed to be the cause of certain deleterious health problems such as hypertension. Moreover, the accumulation of sodium ions in the body tends to cause an accumulation of fluids, with a corresponding increase in weight, by the body tissues. See Col. 1 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,505,082 to Miller issued Apr. 7, 1970, and Food Product Development, Vol. 13, No. 1, page 24, (January 1979).
The primary source of sodium ions in the diet is sodium chloride, i.e. common or table salt, which enters the diet via three pathways: (1) food naturally containing sodium chloride, (2) processed foods to which sodium chloride and other sodium salts are added, and (3) food to which sodium chloride is added by the individual during cooking or just prior to eating. The last two pathways have posed the greatest problem of excessive sodium ion intake in the diet.
Significant attention has been directed to ways to remove sodium chloride from the diet, including removal from processed foods. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,775,543 to Zyss, issued Nov. 27, 1973 which discloses a solubilizing and binding agent composition selected from potassium orthophosphate, polyphosphate, and pyrophosphate and mixtures thereof to replace sodium chloride and sodium phosphate in processed meat products. See also U.S. Pat. No. 3,447,932 to Olson et al., issued June 3, 1969 which discloses potassium chloride in combination with nonsodium polyphosphates and phosphates as substitute meat protein solubilizing agents for processed meats.
However, the removal of sodium chloride from the human diet poses difficult problems. The "saltiness" associated with sodium chloride is a particularly important flavor characteristic in many kinds of foods. Foods which do not have a salty taste have been described variously as "bland", "flat", or "tasteless". Therefore, the absence of salty flavor in the foods results in a much less pleasurable eating experience for those persons on sodium-restricted diets.
Various compositions have been used as salt substitutes. Among the most popular of these substitutes are ammonium chloride, potassium chloride and mixtures thereof used alone or with other additives. However, these salt substitutes suffer from the drawbacks of off-taste or bitter flavor, additional deleterious effects on health in the case of ammonium chloride, and a salty impression much less than that of sodium chloride.
Compositions containing large amounts of potassium chloride, in particular, have a bitter taste. Several attempts have been made to overcome the bitterness of salt substitutes containing potassium chloride. One attempt has been preparation of compositions generally characterized as sodium-free salt substitutes which utilize a masking agent to suppress the bitterness. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,505,082 to Miller, issued Apr. 7, 1970, which discloses a composition comprising 80-99% by weight of potassium chloride and from 1 to 20% by weight of fumaric acid, and which also discloses other masking agents such as potassium and calcium formate, magnesium citrate, dipotassium succinate and a variety of citrates, tartrates, gluconates, ascorbates, cyclamates, glutamates, and ion exchange resins. See also British Pat. No. 1,275,540, published May 24, 1972, which discloses a composition of potassium chloride or mixtures of potassium chloride and ammonium chloride, cream of tartar and either lactose or dextrose. The salt substitutes which employ masking agents generally contain a high percentage by weight of potassium chloride.
A second group of salt substitutes comprise potassium chloride which has been replaced by a quantity of sodium chloride, sometimes quite large, with or without an additional masking agent. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,514,296 to Frank et al., issued May 26, 1970 which discloses a salt substitute comprising 20% to 80% potassium chloride and 80% to 20% sodium chloride. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,006 to Moritz issued Jan. 10, 1978, which discloses a salt substitute comprising potassium chloride, as much as 65% by weight sodium chloride and 0.5% to 1.5% by weight citric acid. In spite of these attempts to provide a suitable salt substitute containing potassium chloride, there still remains a need for a good non-sodium salt substitute to flavor foodstuffs.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a salt substitute which is substantially free of sodium.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a salt substitute utilizing less than 50% potassium chloride by weight, yet having a pleasing salty flavor.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a salt substitute having desirable positive flavor characteristics in addition to a salty flavor.
These and other objects of the present invention are described hereinafter.